System and method for documenting patient procedures

A method of operating a surveillance system to document patient procedures, the surveillance system comprising at least one surveillance camera, a monitoring station, a patient procedure remote, memory, and at least one processing unit, and a network interface, the method comprising:

• capturing a plurality of video frames of a surveillance area with the surveillance camera;
• saving the plurality of video frames in the memory;
• detecting a presence of a health care professional proximate to the surveillance area to perform a patient procedure with the patient procedure remote;
• transmitting an indication of the detection from the patient procedure remote to the at least one processing unit;
• creating a data event file in response to the detection of the presence of a health care professional, wherein creating the data event file comprising creating at least one header associated with the data event file;
• based on reception of the indication of the detection of the presence at the at least one processing unit, prioritizing a first set of video frames of the plurality of video frames that show the presence of the healthcare professional proximate to the surveillance area relative to a second set of video frames of the plurality of video frames, wherein the second set of video frames show routine surveillance of the surveillance area before the indication is received, wherein the prioritization protects the first set of video frames from overwriting in the memory while allowing the second set to be overwritten, and wherein saving and prioritizing are performed by the at least one processing unit;
• writing the first set of video frames to the data event file;
• receiving an indication from the patient procedure remote indicating the end of a medical procedure;
• determining the accessibility of a network using the network interface;
• transferring the at least one header contained within the data event file to the monitoring station using the network interface if the network is accessible;
• transferring the plurality video frames from the control system to the monitoring station;
• detecting a network bottleneck condition using the network interface;
• and
• in response to a bottleneck condition, transmitting only those video frames written to the data event file to the monitoring station.

A surveillance system for documenting patient procedures comprising:

• a monitoring station including at least one dedicated storage server;
• a surveillance camera configured to capture a plurality of video frames of a surveillance area;
• a patient procedure remote sensor configured to detect a presence of a health care professional proximate to the surveillance area to perform a patient procedure and output a signal indicative of the detection;
• and
• a control system comprising memory, a network interface, and at least one processing unit, the control system configured to:
• receive the plurality of video frames from the surveillance camera;
• save the plurality of video frames in the memory;
• receive the signal indicating the presence of the healthcare professional proximate to the surveillance area from the patient procedure remote;
• based on the reception of the indication, determine a beginning of a patient procedure and an end of the patient procedure;
• based on the reception of the indication, create a medical procedure data file containing those video frames received between the beginning of the patient procedure and the end of the patient procedure, the medical procedure data file including at least one header;
• receive an indication from the patient procedure remote indicating the end of a medical procedure;
• determine the accessibility of a network using the network interface;
• transfer the at least one header contained within the medical procedure data file to the monitoring station using the network interface if the network is accessible;
• transfer the plurality of video frames from the control system to the monitoring station;
• detect a bottleneck condition using the network interface;
• and
• in response to a bottleneck condition, transmit only those video frames written to the medical procedure data file to the monitoring station.